Waste Not Want Not

It’s an injunction as well
As a promise—you shouldn’t
Waste. It’s wrong to waste. Also,

If you’re not wasteful, you can
Get out of the misery
Of running out of supplies.

Be thrifty. You’ll do better.
Be profligate. You’ll do worse.
No one whispers the reverse—

Want not, waste not. The only
Way you’ll never waste, only
Way refusing to waste won’t

Destroy you in its own way—
The ceaseless labor of thrift,
The exhausting life of thrift,

All the backed-up hoard of thrift—
Is if you want for nothing,
Never wanted, never did.